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Tuesday, June 21, 2016

by Chris Guld, GeeksOnTour.com
On our What Does This Button Do? show this past week (Episode 85) we demonstrated some search tricks with Google Photos. Slide the YouTube playhead to the 17 minute, 13 second mark to see the demos.

Step One: Automatic Face Groups

If you use Google Photos, you probably know that it automatically groups like faces together, but did you know that you can ask for pictures that have 2 particular people in the photo? I have 50,000 photos in my Google Photos library. With one search, I can instantly see just the photos with two named people in the photo.
Obviously there are lots of pictures of people in my 50,000 collection. With one click on Albums, then another on People, I see automatic Face Groups. Click on one face and I see all the pictures with just that face.

Step Two: Name the Face Groups

When you click on the face of any group, it opens up to display all the photos that include that face. You will also see a little note asking “Who's this? Add a private label to search by name” Just type a name in the space provided and click Done.

Step Three: Search for Two Names

Once the faces are named, you can now use Search. In the example above, clicking on Jim displays hundreds of photos with Jim’s face, clicking on Devon does the same with Devon’s face. But using Search for Jim and Devon, and the results are just dozens of photos with both Jim and Devon in the shot.
Have Fun Searching!Chris Guld is President and Teacher-in-Chief at GeeksOnTour.com. She has been in computer training and support since 1983 and owned a Computer Training Center called Computer Savvy from 1983-1996. She was one of the first WordPerfect Certified trainers in 1986; President of the International Computer Training Association in 1993; Author of the Beginner’s Guide to Picasa and the PicasaGeeks.com website. She is now a Top Contributor for the Google Photos Forum and owner of the LearnGooglePhotos.com blog. She loves to teach! If you want to learn, you’ve come to the right place.

Monday, June 20, 2016

We help people started with Google Photos nearly every day! We decided to set it up as a class using online Webinar tools. This is for a very small group - limit 5 people. We will meet together for 2 sessions - 1 hour each, then each person will get one followup private session.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

by Chris Guld, GeeksOnTour.com
If you and your friend both use Google Photos, it is so easy to send them photos. You can send just one, or you can send hundreds of photos with one link, no need to break it up into small pieces, no need to attach to emails. There is also no need to use time and bandwidth to download and upload, because this process gets the pictures from your account in the cloud and transfers them directly to your friend's account in the cloud.
To send a group of photos to a friend, follow these steps:

You can use a computer and Photos.Google.com, or a mobile device and the Google Photos App

Select the photos you want to send. You can select large groups by first putting them in an album, then sharing the album. You can also select a large group of photos on a computer by selecting the first one, scrolling down to the last and hold the shift key as you click on it. You can then click to deselect any pictures that don't belong. On a mobile device, long-press on the first one and drag thru the rest.

Click the share button and choose Get Link. A link has now been copied.

You can now paste that link into an email that you send to your friend. You can also paste it into a text message, or a facebook post, or even a blog page.

When your friend receives the link and clicks it, they will see all the pictures you shared. They don't need a Google Photos Account to see them, but if they do use Google Photos and are logged into their account, they will see a cloud button with a down arrow. When they click that, all the pictures they see will be added to their own Google Photos library.

That's it! You select and send. Your friend opens and saves.
If you are a GeeksOnTour.com premium member, you should watch the following videos from the Google Photos learning group:

What is High Quality?

At the High Quality size, Google maintains your photos’ pixels up to 16 MegaPixels. That’s 4,000 X 4,000. That’s more than most digital cameras offer today. It’s big. So it sounds like it only reduces your photo if it’s more than 16 megapixels right? Well, not exactly. It does take your photo and compresses the file size while maintaining the same number of pixels. Your 12 megapixel photo will still be 12 megapixels, but where the .jpg file for the original photo may have been 3 MB (megabytes), the file that is uploaded is compressed to about half that.
If you take pictures for personal use, just select High Quality and don’t even think about it. It is truly high quality. That’s is big enough to completely fill your computer screen and be very sharp. I have printed 8X10 glossies of a picture using the original .jpg file and using the compressed ‘High Quality” file and I could not tell the difference.
If you are a professional photographer who may want your picture to grace the cover of a magazine, that’s another story. I’m sure you want your original. So keep the original somewhere, but you may still want to use Google Photos at the High Quality setting. The smaller files give you a faster experience when viewing, searching, uploading, downloading,and sharing than the full size.

If I have Unlimited storage, why does it say I have 13 Gigabytes remaining?

Google gives everyone 15 Gigabytes of storage for free. This storage is shared by all your Google services; Gmail, Google Drive, Contacts, Photos, etc. So, Gmail and Drive may be taking up 2 Gigabytes, for example, bringing your quota down to 13. Photos uploaded using Google Photos at High Quality do not count. So, if you uploaded even 20 Gigabytes of photos, you would still have 13 GB of your quota left.
If you upload photos using Google Drive, they will count against your quota. It’s only when you upload using the Google Photos Backup and Sync, with setting at High Quality, that they don’t count.

What about Pictures I already uploaded at Original Size?

Google now gives you a way to retroactively set past uploads to the High Quality and thus recover the storage space used up on your quota. Using a computer, go to Photos.Google.com, click on the 3 line menu and then Settings. You’ll see an option to Recover Storage. Click that and any already uploaded pictures will be compressed.

Does Uploading Pictures with Picasa use the High Quality Setting?

No. Picasa still uses an old standard size called “Best for Sharing.” This is defined as 2048 pixels on the longest side. To put it in the same terms, let’s say a picture is 2048X2048 – that would be just over 4 MegaPixels – or 1/4 the size of the new “High Quality.”
Here’s what you do: Use Picasa to upload photos at the Original Size option. This will count against your storage quota from Google, but you can later use the option to Recover Storage and retroactively compress those files.